Being Able To Dream And Imagine After The Loss Of A Child

When a child is being brought into the world, his or her parents begin to dream and imagine their futures. Never do they ever dream or imagine their funerals. We, as parents, can handle the possibilities of our own mortality, but to face your child’s before your own is just something that is “unimaginable”. But there are those of us, and I am a parent in this category, who have not only had to live through their child’s passing but learn to continue to live with that memory everyday.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), caused by Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndromes (CAS), claims the lives of young adolescents and young athletes at a rate of 20 per day, 7,000 per year in this country between the ages of 6 – 18. There are an estimated 14,000 per year between the ages of 0 – 25. This is a silent killer of our children that strikes randomly and without warning.

Everywhere in this country, someone you know has heard of a story where a football player has died on the field, a basketball player on the court, a runner dropping at the finish line and, unfortunately, so on and so on. These are considered to be “public deaths”. There are roughly 300 – 400 public deaths per year, BUT there are THOUSANDS of other deaths that happen at home in the peacefulness of their sleep, eating at the kitchen table, possibly a dry drowning while in the family pool, maybe even something as simple and as fun as playing T-ball for the first time and many, many other scenarios; a seemingly healthy happy child suddenly gone from us forever.

I do not claim to be a scholar or pretend to know everything there is to know, but I do know that if there is a way to raise awareness and educate parents to the insidiousness of this particular disease state and advocate for a solution that could possibly prevent a child’s death from a detectable, treatable cardiac arrhythmia, I am going to give it my best shot. There is no greater pain anyone can endure than the loss of a child. For this reason, the Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndromes Foundation has been born, and as I dream and imagine when going forward with this new adventure, I see the hope and optimism of “saving lives”, not the pain and grief I have experienced of losing one. It is, for me, a new beginning that brings back the joy of remembering why my son Marc was born and a new meaning and comfort to the pain of why he died.

I am looking forward to sharing my thoughts, ideas, feelings, loves, experiences and knowledge with any, and all, who want to hear them. And it is my hope that everyone out there from parents to organizations, teachers, school communities, hospitals and even those living with a cardiac arrhythmia will share the same with me. Through the power of positive thinking, it is without a doubt that there are children out there whose lives will be saved just by something as simple as sharing information. Here’s to the beginning of a new life!